


bird bones

by macabre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Depressed Peter Parker, Depressed Tony Stark, Eating Disorders, Gen, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 21:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16457486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: AU where Iron Man and Spiderman don't exist. Tony is just living one day at a time when he meets a kid sporting some bruises and a love for the work Tony would really rather forget about.





	bird bones

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains material that may be potentially triggering in regards to drinking, eating disorders, and general mental health.

    It wasn’t the first, second, or even third time that Tony tried to get sober that he went the route of AA. Howard Stark would have been mortified if he were still around, but he’s not, and the world has already sat center row on the shit show that first up-curtained before he was eighteen. He had a sponsor, Teddy, who Tony never got the chance to interact with as much as he was supposed to - he never got a damn chip - but when he passed last year Tony went to his service all the same.  
  
    The group of mourners gathered there varied in age and background, but they toasted Teddy with sparkling water and all said the same thing: you chose your family.  
  
    Tony thought he knew that more than anyone. The list of people who could stand to be around him was so short now. Things were marginally more under control than they had been - he’d at least taken his drinking private. Any banquets or conferences he had he could function well enough to avoid the temptation, but he’d never given up the bar at home, and at this point didn’t plan to.  
      
    He has a shrink he sees regularly, as mandated by the board of directors. He’s past the point of resentment about it though; Dr. Linden is nice enough and lets Tony talk about nothing if he wants. It’s been the longest relationship in his life, in many ways, when the doctor dryly reminds him that it’s their fifth anniversary.  
  
    Because Tony is functioning. He signs things, he keeps his dirty secrets private now, and can sport a grin and throw up a peace sign when needed for the cameras. He even let his assistant Miss Potts directly hand him things to sign the other day.  
  
    But he doesn’t build things any more, and he’s locked up his lab. It was his motivation to get sober - get sober and you can unlock the door, he said. That was three years ago.  
  
    He’s had a tough March - the anniversary of his parents’ death comes and goes and Tony cancels all his appointments because he doesn’t think he can stop shaking. The lingering bitterness of the New York winter doesn’t help him either. After three missed appointments with Linden, he bundles up and heads to the hospital. Out of the all shrinks he’s seen, of course the one he can stand works in a full service hospital. There is a separate entrance for the head doctors and the general practitioners, but Tony still sometimes sees more than he wants to see being wheeled in at the next closest door.  
  
    Point being, there are always people hanging around the place when Tony comes and goes, but by the time he hits Union Square after the session ends, he knows for sure he’s been followed.  
  
    He can tell from the corner of his eye that the figure isn’t too big or menacing, but he’s shocked when he doubles back and directly confronts his stalker. He had only meant to get in their face and scare them a little bit - he didn’t mean to knock them over. He wouldn’t have to hear the pathetic squeak that went with it then.  
      
    “Jesus, are you alright?” He asks, bending forward to lend a hand, then thinking better of it. He snaps back up. “Christ, how old are you? Where are your parents?”  
      
    “Mr. Stark!” The kid chirps. He flops around before he can get up. The backpack on his shoulder is three times as thick as his torso and looks like it’s weighing his down. “Hi! Oh my gosh, it is you!”  
  
    “You need an autograph, kid?” Tony doesn’t get asked much, but it happens, and it figures it would be by a baby who doesn’t know any better.  
  
    “Oh, ugh.” The kid gapes at him, mouth literally hanging open. He doesn’t say anything else, and Tony is cold and ready to sink back into bed. He rolls his eyes and continues walking.  
  
    “Wait!” The kid scrambles to follow him, this time keeping in stride with him. “I just can’t believe it’s you! How cool!”  
  
    No one has thought it’s cool to meet Tony for years. He’s still got a playboy reputation - maybe the kid thinks of himself as a Hugh Hefner wannabe. It’s kind of hard to imagine with all ninety pounds of him though.  
  
    “I’ve read all of your papers!” He says, and Tony can hear him gasping for air just trying to keep up with him. “I’m a huge fan. Your early stuff on AI is my favorite. The DUM-E bot you created - I made a mini replica last year.”  
      
    “Oh yeah? They teach that in kindergarten now?” He cuts the kid off before he can say anything else. They cross another street and he wonders how long the kid is going to tail him. He should have let Happy drive him today.  
  
    “I go to Midtown, and the robotics team there sucks but I’ve been tinkering on my own.” He pulls out his phone - Tony forces himself to relax when he notices his hand disappear into his pocket. “Here, let me show you-”  
  
    “Nope, sorry.” Tony takes a wider step to the side. “My consultation fees are enormous kid, you can’t afford them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment to keep.”  
  
    Tony all just runs home to avoid any more social interactions; he saw the hurt look on the kid’s face, the wide Bambi-like eyes just tracking him down the street, but at least he stayed put. Tony makes it home to his 3 o’clock drink and all is forgotten.  
  
    Until the next week. The kid is harder to miss both because he’s not trying to be sneaky about approaching him, but he’s also sporting a fantastic shiner on his cheek that covers most of the left side of his face.  
  
    “Jesus, kid, what’d you do? Stalk Tyson down the street next?”  
  
    “Oh, ugh, you know.” His mouth is doing the fish impression again. “Bullies.”  
      
    “Did you at least give as good as you get?” Tony shouldn’t encourage youths, but here he is.  
      
    “Of course!”  
  
    “Did ya now?” Tony stops walking to really look over the kid for the first time. He’s short - a head shorter than Tony, and that’s saying something. He really has to weigh in the low hundred range - it looks like the slightest wind could knock the boy over, so the idea of him standing up to any bully is humorous, if not valiant. “What are you doing here anyway? You looking for me again?”  
  
    “Yep.” He grins at Tony, rocking back and worth on his feet a little. “I mean, just to say hi. I know you’re very busy, and I just so happen to get done with my appointment around this time, so…”  
  
    Appointment, huh. Kid did follow him from the hospital then, and if it’s a weekly appointment, the kid is also probably seeing a shrink in that same area of the hospital. There’s a part of him that wonders what the kid’s deal is, but it’s none of his business, and it’s probably just generic family drama anyway.  
      
    “Well - hey kid -”  
  
    “Peter.”  
  
    “Huh?”  
  
    “My name is Peter.” He sticks out his hand. At this point, Tony’s gut tells him that the kid couldn’t harm a fly, but he ignores it all the same. The smile on the boy’s face slowly melts, and his hand goes down slowly when it’s clear that Tony has no intention of taking it. “I ugh - um - sorry - but -”  
  
    Peter stammers a whole lot of nonsense, and Tony takes in the beat up shoes and thin coat he’s wearing. The kid’s face looks even worse when he tilts his head down and looks at his feet, maybe following Tony’s gaze.  
  
    It takes a lot of practice to look in the mirror and acknowledge a pathetic thing, but Tony has finally achieved this, and right now, looking at this kid - he kind of feels for him. Reminds him of himself, pathetic thing number one.  
  
    “Hey kid, you ate lunch yet?”  
      
    The way Peter’s face lights up is almost enough for Tony to immediately change his mind; he doesn’t want anyone to look at him like that again. It’s too much pressure. Nonetheless, he lets the kid follow him across the street to the tiny cafe that has no business being in business, other than it’s the only thing many of the patients and health care physicians have time to run to.  
  
    He tells the kid to order whatever he wants because the kid looks like he could use it, but the way the woman is looking over the two of them together and Peter with his swollen face makes Tony break out into a sweat.  
  
    “I thought you were gonna eat,” Peter asks when they sit down together. Tony grips the black coffee to keep himself warm. He shrugs.  
  
    “How’s Midtown?”  
  
    Peter’s eyes light up again. Tony grimaces into the cup. “You remembered!” He talks a lot - way faster than Tony did even in his hay day - but it saves Tony from having to contribute much at all. He hears about some of the kid’s school and friends, but really the kid is dying to talk to him about robots, which is fine. He can listen, even if he’s not going to participate in this fantasy.  
  
    “So did a classmate give you that?” He asks, gesturing at his own face. He hasn’t shaved in awhile. It’s getting unmanageable.  
  
    “Ah. Um, no.” Peter squirms in a way that Tony assumes might indicate a lie. Immediately, he pales a little - he wonders what the kid’s home life is like, but he’s not going to open that can of worms. That’s what therapy is for.  
  
    “Hey, I thought you were gonna eat,” Tony jokes, nodding towards the plate in front of Peter. The kid ordered a grilled cheese, and there’s maybe one real bite taken out of it. There are some pieces pulled out of it, but they’ve only been moved around the top of the plate where maybe he thinks Tony can’t see. “Not any good?”  
  
    “Oh no, it’s fine. I just - I think I am going to wrap it up and take it with me.”  
  
    Again, Tony wonders what home is like. He stands after another ten minutes - he’s sat with the kid for almost an hour. Done his civil duty or good deed, whatever. He says goodbye and knows it won’t be the last time he sees the kid, but it doesn’t stop the routine that’s emerging from becoming annoying.  
  
    Over the next few weeks, Tony learns that Peter is way smarter than he lets on. He grasps more concepts than any kid his age has a right to, and Tony knows that from personal experience. He finds out that his parents are actually deceased and that the kid lives with an aunt. It’s another couple weeks before he finds out that the uncle is also deceased, and that Peter is far more weary of taking about the uncle than the parents. Fresher wounds, he guesses.  
  
    Tony still wonders what home life with the aunt is like - Peter sometimes has bruises, sometimes doesn’t. He’s always as pale as a ghost and wearing a deceptive thick puffer jacket, even if it is too thin. He continually worries that the bruises are coming from home, but it’s not any of his business and he really doesn’t want to call any kind of child protective services himself. He talks about this to both Pepper and his doctor.  
  
    Pepper tells him flat out no - if he’s worried, he needs to call. She hasn’t even seen the kid, she says, but the doctor asks more questions about Peter. Tony jokingly remarks that he doesn’t make any new friends so he can see the interest in asking, but seriously - the kid is fifteen.  
  
    “But you feel fatherly towards him?” Linden asks.  
  
    “Doc, I ain’t got a paternal bone in my body.”  
  
    Tony is a great liar, but Linden has a great poker face. Requisite for the job.  
  
    Finally, Tony just flat out asks Peter, because he can’t go on like this worrying about a kid that he has no right to talk to even. It’s an ugly question, and it sounds uglier coming out of his mouth. Peter just stares at him, all doe-eyed and soft - and that is why Tony has to ask. Because Peter doesn’t look like he could hurt anyone, and to think of someone else hurting him is enough for Tony to loose his precious two hours of sleep a night.  
  
    “Mr. Stark, my aunt wouldn’t ever hurt me.” He sounds sad when he answers, so Tony wonders again if this is what it sounds like when Peter lies.  
  
    “Where’d they come from then, huh?”  
  
    “I told you - bullies.”  
  
    And it’s not like Tony can’t believe that Peter has bullies - in some ways, the kid screams punch me. It’s just that he can hear some kind of omission happening. Either way, Tony decides to do some low level investigating into the kid’s background. He finds the aunt, finds her taxes and her places of employment. Her online dating profile. She has the same soft look to her as Peter actually, but something still isn’t adding up.  
  
    Child services has never been called on her, and the fact that Peter sees a doctor regularly makes him believe that the aunt may not be involved, but he also knows a school like Midtown wouldn’t allow the same kid to be a personal punching bag, and despite only seeing Peter’s face and hands when the kid is around, he’s seen more than a few bruises. There would be a record of conflict and suspensions if it was bullies, but the kid’s academic file is surprisingly bare given how intelligent he is, but his suspicion that Peter has a scholarship there turns out to be correct. He now knows how much their household income in. He doesn’t need to know, but he does.  
  
    He wonders what is underneath the jacket. It’s end of May now, so Peter doesn’t need a coat, but he always has on pants and long sleeves. Peter obviously knows that Tony wonders, but he never addresses it and never shows a glimpse more of skin. Maybe he really is just cold all the time.  
  
    Peter misses a week when Tony doesn’t see him despite hanging around after his session for an extra hour. He goes home and does some more digging - hospital records show a Peter Parker came in with a broken leg a few days ago.  
  
    So Tony calls the doctor’s office and moves his appointments with Linden to a different day. He doesn’t see Peter the next week, or the week after. His mantra every time he goes is that Peter isn’t his responsibility and he can’t keep wondering. Peter was becoming attached - he asked Tony Stark to come to his robotics tournament, he tried to lean in for a hug over ice cream.  
  
    Of course, the kid does catch up to him, because of course he does. He’s too smart not to, and Tony didn’t try that hard.  
  
    “Hey, Mr. Stark!” His leg is propped up on a scooter and he’s desperately scooting down the hall towards him. This is the first time he’s approached Tony in the hospital, right outside of his doctor’s office. It’s a dirty secret they share but can’t acknowledge. “Hi, I’m so glad I caught you - I’ve been wondering when I’d see you again! Listen, I tried out that new circuit we talked about on RICTUS, and it totally worked! And I -”  
  
    “Kid. No.” Tony puts up a literal hand to his face. “No.”  
      
    Peter deflates, his mouth hanging out and sweat dripping from one of the curls by his eyes. “What?”  
  
    “I can’t, okay.” Tony is already walking - as fast as he can because he knows the kid is having trouble keeping up - right out the door.  
  
    “Wait!”  
  
    Tony keeps walking, and Peter keeps scooting. “Did I do something wrong?”  
  
    Tony doesn’t say anything at all, because he’s not sure if he should yell yes or no. He just keeps walking, that is until Peter upturns the scooter and lands in a heap on the cross walk because the road isn’t made for kids with broken legs.  
      
    “Christ, be careful.” Tony helps Peter up, and the way that the kid lights back up makes him second guess if it was planned or not.  
  
    “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”  
  
    Tony just grunts like the grinch and goes back to walking, even if it is a little slower this time. “Can’t we get lunch, Mr. Stark?”  
      
    “You gonna tell me how you broke the leg?”  
  
    “Ugh, yeah, sure, if you’ll talk to me again.”  
  
    Tony gives in, because no matter what he still worries the kid doesn’t get enough to eat. They sit there awkwardly in the cafe after they order at the front. Peter has never been this quiet around him before.  
  
    “I want the truth.”  
  
    “I know.”  
  
    “So?”  
  
    “Ugh. Well. You know how you built some armor and weapons in Afghanistan to escape the bad guys?”  
  
    Tony shudders; just the word Afghanistan is a trigger, and he doesn’t mean to be dramatic about it. After touring some of the war zones where the company had been testing new weapons, Tony was held captive for nearly a month before escaping by scrapping together crude armor and some IEDs. He was worth enough money to the government that they had people looking for him, and thus he was picked up and saved from dying in the desert, but it was a near thing, and the scars on his chest from the torture while they kept him for ransom will never fade any more than what looks like a crater in his chest.  
  
    “We’re not talking about that.”      
  
    “I know, but let’s just say you’ve always been a hero to me.”  
  
    Tony is forced to cram his eyes shut and look away.  
      
    “I’ve been tinkering in my chem lab with some new compounds, things I can use as weapons that will subdue more than harm, and I’ve been patrolling Queens at night. I helped a woman escape an assailant a few weeks ago, but I’ve also stopped a robbery, Mr. Stark, and -”  
  
    “Wait. Stop.” Tony takes a deep breath, thinks about what he just heard. “Are you saying you’re some kind of vigilante?”  
  
    “I mean, I don’t know.” Peter’s smile is watery. “I just wanted to do something. Help the little guy out. Be someone’s hero.”  
  
    You are the little guy, kid, Tony thinks. “Your uncle was killed during a mugging.”  
  
    Peter jolts, but Tony thinks fair is fair when Afghanistan is brought up. “Yeah.”  
  
    “Is that why you’re running around trying to be Captain America?”  
  
    “That’s what my therapist says.”  
  
    Ah, he thinks. The therapist knows. “Is that why you’re in therapy?”  
  
    Peter doesn’t immediately answer. “Sorta.”  
      
    And the dead parents. And dead uncle. “How long has this been going on?”  
  
    “Five months, but my aunt busted me. She found my mask and, you know, with the broken leg and all.”  
  
    “You mean she didn’t buy the bully excuse anymore?”  
  
    Peter shrugs. “There are bullies everywhere, Mr. Stark.”  
  
    “Well, you look like shit, kid. I hope you’re resting up now.” Tony looks over Peter - how thin his wrists are under the long sleeve knit, and the dark circles under his eyes that could be bruises. “Seriously, quit that shit out and just do your fucking robotics or whatever.”  
  
    He doesn’t stay to watch the kid pick apart his sandwich. Tony is so mad at the kid that he doesn’t talk to him the next week, although he does get the kid’s lunch as usual. He sits and listens to Peter talk for a few minutes, but he abruptly leaves before the food comes. Peter acts like everything is normal, and that he’s just a normal kid.  
  
    “You know I’m stronger than I look right, Mr. Stark?”  
  
    It’s like the kid suffers from grandiose delusions. Maybe he does.  
      
    Since summer is in full swing, Peter starts showing up at the tower. It’s well know that Tony still lives there, but even the paparazzi rarely make an appearance. Peter says he’s bored outside of school, and his foot is still in a cast, so he can’t do much. Tony lets him up to his penthouse suite because he thinks that at least the kid is safe inside and not up to anything.  
  
    When Peter leaves, Tony drinks a bottle of whisky in completion. He opens a second. The next two times Peter comes over, Tony is too sick to hardly acknowledge him. Peter watches Tony’s shaking hands when he forces a pizza box into the kid’s hands, but he doesn’t say anything.  
  
    Then he stops letting the kid up into the apartment, because others in the tower are starting to gossip. He doesn’t need that, and the kid sure doesn’t.  
  
    By the end of summer, when Peter goes back to school and he sees him less, he can acknowledge that Peter is a new trigger for Tony. Something about the kid is making him drink more than usual. His therapist makes a noise and asks about those fatherly instincts again when Tony mentions this to him.  
  
    “My worry for the kid isn’t just manifesting in my drinking, doc. If that were the case, my father would have been father of the year, every year.”  
  
    “But you think he’s the reason for your increased drinking as of late?”  
  
    Tony doesn’t know what to think about the kid. He wants to know what his doctor and his aunt and other people know about him. What they think of what the kid did. He wants to go see the kid compete in his nerd tournaments, but can’t. He skips a couple of appointments because he hopes that it will quell some of the thoughts in his head, and maybe he’ll be able to go a couple days with a drink. He doesn’t see Peter for a few weeks, but he thinks about him, and hopes that he’s behaving since his leg is healed.  
  
    He gets a text from Peter in late October. He’s seen him a few times since school started, and Tony gave him his number for emergencies, but Peter dutifully never used it. The text reads: Hey Mr. Stark - I won’t be around for awhile. I’m in the hospital. I hope you’re doing alright.  
  
    Immediately he pulls up the hospital records, but there’s no intake for Peter listed. So he widens his search. It doesn’t take too long - Peter is still in New York state, but no longer in the boroughs. He’s upstate at a private treatment facility. When Tony reads through the website of the place, he smashes the mostly empty bottle of bourbon next to him.  
  
    He has Happy drive him up to the center, unsure of whether or not he’ll be able to see the kid. Apparently he no longer has his phone on him - Peter stopped answering any messages. The center is a massive old house, not a hospital at all, and the woman who answers the door sweetly smiles at him and tells him that they’re not a prison, and yes he is on the list of visitors for Peter. Tony wonders if aunt signed off on that.  
  
    Peter is wrapped up in a blanket sitting outside when Tony walks around the back of the property. The estate the center sits on is gorgeous - ivy walls and a small maze in the back. Fountains. Lots of places to sit and several swings.  
  
    Peter doesn’t see him approach from behind.  
  
    “Hey kid,” Tony says softly. Peter jerks, a bewildered look on his face when he turns around.  
  
    “You’re here.”  
  
    “Of course.”  
  
    Tony stands there looking down at Peter, who looks back up at him, unwavering. Slowly, he stands from where he sits on the lawn. The blanket that was wrapped around his body falls away.  
  
    “Oh, Pete.”  
  
    Emotional cues and wellness was never Tony’s strong suit when it came to intelligence, but the signs were all there. The piles of clothing. The picking apart of food. The sullen look to his skin. The thin patches of hair that were missing from otherwise curly hair.  
  
    Tony tries not to look away, not when the kid is bravely meeting his assessing gaze, but he can’t help it. Peter is bones. They have him dressed in soft sweatpants for the November weather now, but he’s wearing a short sleeved shirt so Tony can see where the radius and ulna twist around each other under his goosebumped skin. He can see the clavicles sticking out of the shoulder of the t-shirt.    
  
    “This is why you were seeing someone.”  
  
    Peter picks up the blanket and wraps himself back up in it.  
  
    “I thought -”  
  
    “You thought I was just some dumb kid. Maybe had daddy issues, like you.” The words don’t have any bite, but they’re the harshest thing he’s ever heard Peter say. “Well, I am just some dumb kid. I can’t do anything. I can’t eat and I can’t sleep, so I tried to feel productive. Maybe then I could eat and sleep. But I kept getting hurt, and it hurt to eat.”  
  
    His nose is running, although Tony can’t see any tears yet. Peter wipes his nose on the blanket and shivers. Tony wraps him up in his arms. He’s so small.  
  
    He’s so small.  
  
    “You’re the least dumb person I know, Pete. I’m sorry.”  
  
    Eventually, Tony does meet the aunt. She’s the kind of person Tony doesn’t really believe exists, but then again, she made Peter. They’re both sickeningly kind, but he hears her guilt about not getting him help earlier. Peter always had a complicated relationship with food, but it wasn’t until after his uncle that he really suffered. There was a bully at school apparently, so May went to the school several times, furious about the bruises on her kid before realizing that they weren’t all from him. She thought he was getting better after he grounded himself with he broken leg, but then the rotting smell of the cast ended up to be more than dead skin.  
  
    Peter needs some help, but that’s okay. Tony can’t judge. He pays for Peter’s on-and-off stay at the center and comes to know the other kids there from his visits. Peter has to check in and out throughout that year. He jokingly says that maybe they can find a treatment center together. It’s the first time that Peter calls him outright on his drinking.  
  
    Peter turns sixteen and breaks a hundred pounds, although the kid still looks like he’s maybe thirteen at best. He shows Tony the suit he made and what he calls his webbing that he used to subdue people with. Tony eats with Peter any time he asks. He goes to a few nerd tournaments and sits with May.  
  
    Tony has a bad relapse the following school year. He takes time away in Switzerland because he needs a break from New York. He thinks about Peter and May a lot - facetimes them when he can. He misses Peter even more than he thought he would. May has a serious conversation with him on the phone.  
  
    “I know he’s almost seventeen now, but I just keep wondering about what would happen to me if I wasn’t here tomorrow,” she says. “I’m reworking my will.”  
  
    They strike a bargain - Tony Stark will be listed as a potential legal guardian if something were to happen to May, but only after he’s sober for at least a month. Tony laughs because one month is pathetic, and Peter is worth so much more than that.  
  
    May tells him that she knows, but it’s just the first step.  
  
    “I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely clean. I’ve gone through times sober, but. They don’t last.”  
  
    May is quiet on the other end. “I don’t know if Peter will ever be what others consider to be okay. He weighed in before Christmas at ninety-eight and I was so scared. But he keeps going. And I know you will too.”  
  
    Peter’s growth is stunted from lack of nutrients, they say. Tony has a heart condition from all the drinking, they say.  
  
    But Tony leaves Switzerland with a month sober, and Peter greets him at the airport with a hug and bare arms. His hair has grown back in. His eyes are the same. They ride back to the tower where Tony unlocks the lab.  
  
    Things get better.  
  
    “You’re a hero after all, kid.”  
  
    


End file.
